You are listening to a program from BBC Radio 4.

The Rabbi Lord Sachs, good morning.

Good morning.

Streaming instead of dreaming went the headline that called My Eye this week.

Using phones or tablets before bedtime, it said, is stopping kids from sleeping.

A series of research exercises suggest that young people who use electronic devices

around bedtime are twice as likely to have inadequate sleep and three times more likely to

feel drowsy the next day. Even having one in the room and not using it is, they say, bad for sleep. Well, there have been quite a few

similar news items in recent weeks. One spoke about the harmful effects of sleep deprivation

on health. Another discovered that seven in ten children and nine in ten teenagers have electronic

devices in their bedroom. A third, surveying 13 countries around the world,

showed that we British are the worst sleepers in the world. Let me say immediately that that's not

been my experience. In fact, whenever I start speaking, people around me show signs of drowsiness,

leading me belatedly to the conclusion that rabbis and anesthetists are in the same line of occupation. I mention all of this because

of a recent conversation I had with a woman from the West Coast of America, where much of this

technology comes from. She was a huge fan of smartphones and social media

as I am, but she said too much was having a bad effect on her children. It wasn't just spoiling their

sleep. It was robbing them of social skills, shortening their attention spans and disrupting family meals.

So she and her family made a radical decision.

Once a week, they would have a screen-free day.

No phones, no tablets, no laptops, no TVs, just family and friends talking together, eating together, celebrating life without the

distraction of being 24-7 online. It's been tough but terrific, she said. What enthralled me was the

...